Quakers and Sex

Wow, I hope that title doesn't propell me to the top of the Amish-Fetish google search. I also hope that having typed the words Amish-Fetish into this post doesn't have the same effect.

As I rediscover my spirtuality, and the changes that is has made, and continues to make in my life, I have been ready - even eager - to come upon new challenges of ethics and their meaning in my life. The one arena I've been loathe to touch, for probably very predictable ex-Catholic reasons, is sexuality, and how a truly God-centred, rather than bible or catechism centred, life treats it these days. My personal thought and experience on the subject has swung from Josh Harris style no-kissing-till-the-altar chastity to everything-goes-eat-drink-and-be-merry-for-tomorrow-we-die libertine amorality. Once I came to the Silence of Quaker Meeting, I was content to put the matter into the back corners of my brain, which worked quite well.

Last First Day, a member gave a tender and funny message on the subject, after finding "s-e-x" carved into the back of the bench in front of her. In my explorations of Plain Dress, I constantly run up against passionate ideals and apologetics for "modesty" in dress as a sexual ethic.

Alice, the Public Quaker blogged about this article on modesty today. As I read it, I found myself both moved and conflicted by it. I was relating very strongly to the author and her experience, and her viewpoint, but I couldn't concieve of re-aliging myself with the "sex ed is the root of all evil" ideology. (Disclaimer, I'm not sure that's what the author was saying.)

It's so hard to know what's socialization, what's convention, what's true, what's made up, what is actually right, and what is outdated ethic. What is prudence? What is prudery?

I have been rather outspoken in my declaration that I don't dress plain for the sake of modesty, but I'm reconsidering that statement. Wait - hear me out. In my search for an definition of sexual virtue untainted by neurosis or patriarchy or outdated moral codes, I actually came very close to it in this article, which is largely concerned with the question of homosexuality, but also much more widely applicable. It is Towards a Quaker View of Sex.

The most useful quote from the piece is this:

True chastity is a quality of the spirit: it entails the deepest respect and a profound value for human relationships. It involves the most generous giving, which may mean the restraint of withholding, but it is not solely measured in physical terms. Further, there are lives which are being lived unconventionally with more true chastity than some lived in obedience to conventional codes.

If chastity means respect for oneself and others, then promiscuity is the final denial of it. It denies the importance of personality, and those who seek relief in this way of life imprison their true selves—they are sexual deviants damaging both themselves and their transitory partner by divorcing the physical from the spiritual and keeping impersonal what should involve the whole personality. Yet wherever the most transient relationship has, as it may have, an element of true tenderness and mutual giving and receiving, it has in it something of good.

What then is chastity? It is the antithesis of what was recently described to one of us as “the hire purchase attitude of this age”—the attitude that implies: “I want it now and I must have it. I will pay later—perhaps—if I can”. It is not rigid restraint nor refusal to be involved; it is not arid self-discipline nor living according to a moral pattern. It is a wholeness of personality, courtesy and charity, sincerity and purity of heart. It is not necessarily measured in physical terms; it is a total absence of exploitation; it is as necessary a part of marriage as of a single life.

It seems to me that this is a chastity to which I could aspire to, and align myself with. In this context, dressing in a way that is not indiscriminately sexual, which perhaps even puts up barriers to objectification, can be a valuable part of any ethic of truth. By making a sign of "removing oneself from the market" of heartless, selfish, commodity-driven sexuality, perhaps it is possible to move a few steps nearer a world based on whole love, equality, and respect. As my other motivations for plain dress aspire to that same world, would it not be an enrichment to find another supportive motivation?

I've leave you with another important selection from Towards a Quaker View of Sex

Every true Christian, of whatever branch of the Church, accepts that the whole of his life must be brought before God. The Society of Friends places particular emphasis on our individual and personal responsibility. We cannot accept as true a statement that is given us merely because it is given with the authority of tradition or of a Church. We have to make that truth our own—if it is a truth—through diligent and prayerful search and a rigorous discipline of thought and feeling. Man is intended to be a moral being. That is not to say that he should accept a formal morality, an observance of mores, but that his actions should come under searching scrutiny in the light that comes from the Gospels and the working of God within us.

There have been periods in our Quaker history when the effort to achieve consistency and integrity toppled over into a humourless scrupulosity, leading to a restricted life in which a pattern of conduct was secured at the expense of warmth and joy and creativeness. Friends, if they keep in mind the need to avoid this error, could help to discover that kind of conduct and inner discipline through which the sexual energy of men and women can bring health of mind and spirit to a world where man’s energy always threatens to become destructive. We need a release of love, warmth and generosity into the world, in the everyday contacts of life, a positive force that will weaken our fear of one another and our tendencies toward aggression and power-seeking. We need to recognize fearlessly and thankfully the sexual origin of this force.

This search is a move forward into the unknown; it implies a high standard of responsibility, thinking and awareness—something much harder than simple obedience to a moral code. Further, the responsibility that it implies cannot be accepted alone; it must be responsibility within a group whose members are equally committed to the search for God’s will.

Perhaps our last words should be to those, equally aware of the tragedy, who may be distressed and put off by our rejection of a morality that has seemed to them a product of Christianity. We do know, from the intimate experience of several of us, that it is possible to give substance to the traditional code, to live within its requirements, enriched by an experience of love at its most generous and tender, and conscious of our debt to Christ in showing us what love implies. We would ask those who cannot easily follow our thoughts to recognize what has driven us—Christians and Friends, trying to live up to the high standard of integrity that our religious society asks of us—to our insistent questioning.

It is the awareness that the traditional code, in itself, does not come from the heart; for the great majority of men and women it has no roots in feeling or true conviction. We have been seeking a morality that will indeed have its roots in the depths of our being and in our awareness of the true needs of our fellows.

We believe that there is indeed a place for discipline, but that it can only be fully healthy as well as fully Christian when it is found in application to the whole of life. The challenge to each of us is clear: accustom yourself to seeking God’s will and to the experience of his love and power, become used in your daily life to the simple but tremendous spiritual fact that what God asks he enables, provided only and always that we want to do his will.